Tag Archives: whisky

Some Basic Facts

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The way I understand it …

  • all whiskey must be distilled from grain (wheat, rye, barley and corn — not to mention the rare uses of oats and buckwheat)
  • Bourbon is a minimum of 51 percent corn by law
  • Scotch and Irish styles use barley as their base
  • Canadian whisky is often mostly corn, but you can find some brands with a stronger rye base
  • Scotch and Irish whiskies are made in beautiful copper stills often called pot stills
  • American whiskey is usually made in more modern stills — known as column stills — containing copper plates inside
  • distilling in a pot still is more labour intensive and much less efficient than a column still
  • Bourbon and Scotch are typically double-distilled and Irish whiskey triple-distilled (Canadian law does not specify)
  • the more times you distill, the less flavour you have
  • Bourbon must be aged in new charred oak barrels by law (the used barrels get sent all over the world for aging other spirits, like other whiskies)
  • some whiskeys are aged in used wine barrels
  • “straight” Bourbon must be aged at least two years
  • Scotch, Irish and Canadian whiskies are aged a minimum of three years
  • American and Irish producers usually spell it with an “e.” Scotch and Canadian styles are typically spelled “whisky”
  • the word whisky is derived from the Gaelic “uisge beatha” meaning “water of life”

Whisky vs. Brandy

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Whisky. Brandy. What is the difference?

To quote Maggie Savarino, “To make a whisky, you start with grain. To make a brandy, you start with wine, and sometimes other fruit. Bourbon, rye, and Scotch are all whisky (whiskey in some places), while grappa, marc, Armagnac, and cognac are brandies one and all, with a few distinctions.”

Maggie goes on to explain how the type of cask used to age the drink, and even the location of the distillery, can impact the flavour.

Visit the rest of her article by clicking on her name above the quote.

Let me know your thoughts on Maggie’s article by leaving a comment here.

Shackleton’s Scotch Whisky Recovered

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Talk about Scotch with Ice!

Five crates of Scotch and brandy belonging to Sir Ernest Shackleton, buried for more than 100 years in the ice under the explorer’s hut in Antarctica, have been found.

As of the writing of this post, the bottles had not yet been extracted from the ice. Experts think that as long as the bottles are removed intact, the precious liquid inside them will be fine.

To read more about this story, visit the New York Daily News website. The New York Times also had a post about this.

And one more at TVNZ.

Japanese Distillers – Toast of the Whisky World

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In 1918, Masataka Taketsuru, the son of a Japanese sake-brewing dynasty, sailed to Scotland to study chemistry—and he learned the craft of distilling fine Scotch whisky. Some 89 years later, a blend named after him prised something else from the Scots: the honour of being named best whisky in the world.

Now, 3 years later, Japanese whisky maker Nikka is targeting American customers. In 2007 their 21-year old Taketsuru Pure Malt was named the world’s best blended malt at the prestigious Whisky Magazine awards in Glasgow. Despite years of success in their home Japan, sales have been falling, as consumers have drifted to novel products such as beers made without malt and pre-mixed fruit cocktails. The traditional Japanese whisky drinkers numbers are now only about a fifth of what they were 20 years ago.

Time to move Japanese whisky to overseas markets, especially the premium products. Total U.S. sales of all brands is estimated to be well over $5 billion a year, and Japanese distillers are looking to start cutting into that, as well as potentially lucrative emerging markets for premium whisky such as India, China, and Russia.

(I note that in Japan they spell whisky without the “e”, just as the Scottish do!!!)

To read more, see the original article by KENNETH MAXWELL at WSJ.com

Have you tried Japanese whisky? Leave a comment below.